


Sticker

by Dixxy



Category: One Piece
Genre: Bittersweet, F/M, Fluff, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-15
Updated: 2017-08-15
Packaged: 2018-12-15 14:21:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,042
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11807727
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dixxy/pseuds/Dixxy
Summary: (Original: 2009. Updated for 2017)As a child, Nami believed she found the best tasting tangerine in her mother's grove. Years later, she learned she was right. Sanji Nami friendship fic.





	Sticker

**9 Years Ago**

* * *

 

It was time for the tangerine harvest again. Bellemere let her daughters, Nojiko and Nami help her, gather tangerines from the grove. They'd need to get as many of them as they could ready to be shipped all over the East Blue and keep their family afloat in the process.

"Hey Bellemere-san? Who do you think is going to buy our tangerines?"

"I don't know," Bellemere said, wiping the sweat from her brow. "I guess I don't put too much thought into it."

Nami's eyes lit up in wonder as she started to make her predictions. "Maybe a beautiful princess will want one, or a famous musician or maybe even a unicorn!"

"Dummy, unicorns don't exist!" said Nojiko.

"You don't know that!" said Nami.

"Yeah huh!"

"Nu-uh!"

"Yeah huh!"

"Nu-uh!"

"Girls, please!" Bellemere said with a laugh, gently breaking up the argument. "There are a lot of strange things on the Grand Line. Maybe unicorns are one of those things."

Nami stuck her tongue out at her sister. Nojiko returned the gesture, also pulling down her eyelid.

Bellemere shook her head, chuckling at her daughters. At least they'd stopped yelling. 

Nami found a particularly orange and round tangerine and stared at it with wide eyes. "Wow, look at this one, Bellemere-san!" The little girl held up the tangerine with a huge grin on her face, looking at it in awe. "It's so pretty! I bet it's the best tasting tangerine in the entire grove!" She hugged it, looked at Bellemere for approval.

"If you think so, Nami," Bellemere said with a smile.

"But we still have to sell it – we can't eat nothing but tangerines, Nami!" Nojiko said.

Nami sighed, looked at the tangerine, and got an idea. "I know!" she said. Still holding the tangerine, she ran out of the grove and towards the house. "I'll be right back!" she yelled, smiling as Nojiko and Bellemere exchanged a confused look. They shrugged it off and went back to work, guessing that Nami wouldn't do anything too stupid.

(Hopefully.)

A few minutes later, Nami returned with the tangerine, stopped before her foster mother and step sister, and showed them what she had done. There, on the rind, was a pink, purple, and sparkling pink unicorn sticker.

Genzo had given the girls a few sheets of stickers during his last visit, knowing the girls didn't get to have that kind of luxury very often. Unfortunately for the rest of the village, it didn't take very long before sparkling unicorns in all shapes, sizes, and colors ended up all over Bellemere's house and the rest of the village. This tangerine was simply the latest "victim" in the sparkling unicorn sticker spree the girls had been on for the past week or so.

"See? Now whoever eats this will know it's the best one!" she said.

Bellemere sighed, shook her head, and shrugged. "All right, Nami, if you say so."

* * *

 

**9 years later**

* * *

 

The Going Merry had been alive with celebration as they left Cocoyashi Village and headed for Loguetown. Arlong was taken care of, they finally had their ship and Nami back, and with just one stop to go, they were ready to head for the Grand Line. As such, there had been lots of drinking, eating, and general tom foolery to be had.

Luffy, Zoro, and Usopp were passed out in the men's quarters while Sanji was busy cleaning up in the kitchen. Nami was tending to her trees, making sure they were taking to their new home. Moving trees could put them into a state of shock and kill them, but so far they seemed to be doing all right. The navigator gently touched one of the trunks, sighing happily as she thought about Bellemere-san, wondering if she'd approve of her new path in life.

She heard the sound of the kitchen door opening and closing, and Nami saw Sanji step out, light a cigarette, and take a drag. She frowned – she really didn't know him very well yet. Sure, he'd waited on her hand and foot for the few days they were all stuck at the Baratie before Don Krieg attacked and she stole the Going Merry, and he seemed enamored with her, but she really didn't KNOW him. Why had he decided to join Luffy? It couldn't be just her, right? 

"Hey, Sanji-kun!" she called. She winced a little – such a familiar term for someone she didn't even know. He was probably going to take offense to that. It was such a demeaning honorific, too – after all, wasn't he older than her?

Sanji didn't seem to mind. "Yes, Nami-san?" he chimed back, looking up at her as he leaned back against the railing. Nami sighed, rolled her eyes, and chuckled. "Do you need something my angel? Are you still hungry? I can make you anything you want – dessert, a drink, anything! I'll be your slave of love!"

"I don't need a slave of love," she said flatly. Sanji pouted, and Nami shook her head. "Come up here, I want to talk to you."

Sanji grinned at the chance, putting one foot on the railing and launching himself into the mini-grove, startling Nami. "Um, Sanji-kun,"  _Damn, I did it again! He doesn't seem to mind but that's so rude!_  she thought. "I just realized we don't really know each other that well yet and, since we're going to be crewmates and all, I just wanted to get to know you a little better."

The cook swooned. "Of course, Nami-san! I'll tell you anything you want to know!"

Nami bit the inside of her bottom lip. Way too easy to please. Good to know. She turned back to her tangerines, thinking that might be a better ice breaker than Sanji's open invitation to ask her ANYTHING about him. "Well, maybe that's not the way to do that," she kindly suggested, pulling two tangerines off the tree and gently tossing one to Sanji. "Let's just … talk. Don't worry – this tangerine is on the house."

Sanji didn't seem to understand what she was saying about the tangerine "being on the house", but he shrugged, sat down at the base of one of the trees, and started to peel the fruit. "Thank you, Nami-san," he said. He smiled at the tangerine and held it up to his nose, closing his eyes and smelling it. "It smells wonderful." He carefully removed a section and popped it in his mouth, slowly chewing and seeming to savor the taste. Maybe a bit too slowly.

"Sanji-kun?" Nami asked.

Sanji smiled at her and nodded, shoving his free hand into his pocket and pulling out his wallet. "When I was a kid, I almost starved to death once," he said. Nami sat down next to him, stunned by this revelation. "That's how Zeff and I met – we were the only survivors from a storm out on the ocean. We didn't have much food on the island – the old man gave me all the real food, which, if I ate normal portions would have only lasted five days." He swallowed. "I made it last around twenty."

The navigator was stunned.  _Twenty days. Oh, Sanji-kun …_ "How long were you there?" Nami asked.

"I … shouldn't be getting into this, Nami-san – you said you wanted to get to know me and-"

"No, it's fine," she said.

Sanji sighed. "Almost three months."

Nami felt her mouth go dry. "Three... _months_?"

Sanji nodded slowly. "Yeah. Something like that." He sighed and gave her a serious look. "That's why I won't let anyone here waste any food. I'm not going to claim what Arlong put you through is any worse or better than what I went through, but starving? You never, ever want to have to go through it."

"So then...I'm confused. You said that's how you and Chef Zeff met?"

The cook nodded. "Yeah. I was a bratty kid, he was a pirate who'd tried to plunder the ship I was on, and we were the only survivors when a storm took out everyone else." He closed his eyes and laughed. "He saved me because we have the same dream. Did he tell you why he set out to sea?"

"...to become the Pirate King?" asked Nami, reasoning that this was why most pirate captain gathered up a crew and headed to the Grand Line.

"Nope. He's got no interest in that. What Zeff wanted, and what  _I_ want, is to find the All Blue."

"What's that?" Nami asked.

Sanji lit up in genuine wide-eyed excitement, completely unlike the surly man he was around the boys or the love-sick dope he was around her. "It's the place where fish from the North Blue, the West Blue, the South Blue, and the East Blue can all be found swimming together - it's a cook's dream to find that place. Any kind of fish you could want would be right there, so you could make just about anything with the freshest ingredients! I want to see it some day!"

Nami thought about what she knew of the layout of the world. "But how could a place like that exist? The Red Line intersects the two spots where something like that could be - one of them is where Mariejois was built, and the other is Reverse Mountain. Neither one of them has any spots where the water from the Big Blues would mix like that."

"Yeah, they really don't, do they?" Sanji said absently. "They're a bitch to cross, too."

"Hmm? Have you been there before?" Nami asked.

The cook stumbled a little. "Oh, um, it's nothing. Don't worry about it."

Nami sensed that she'd hit a sore spot and decided to back away from that part of their chat. She instead mulled over the conundrum Sanji's dream presented her and managed to crack a smile. "Well,  _my_  dream is draw a map of the world, so if there's another place the All Blue could be, it'll have to go on my map!"

Sanji whistled. "A complete map of the world, huh? That's a tall order."

"No taller than your All Blue."

"I knew joining this crew because of you was the right move - not only are you stunningly beautiful, but it sounds to me like our dreams go hand-in-hand."

Nami felt the smile disappear from her face. "Excuse me?"

Sanji leaned against the railing of the ship. "If the All Blue exists - which I'm sure it does - then you'll need to know where it is so you can put it on your map."

"Oh, I see. And you'll need my map to help figure out where it is at all," said Nami.

"Exactly," said Sanji. He grinned. "Perhaps fate has brought us together to fulfill our wildest dreams and this is a sign that we're meant to be together!"

Nami decided to ignore his insinuation that they were "meant to be together". It was probably just a coincidence. "Well, it sounds like we're all helping each other fulfill our dreams. Luffy said it himself - he doesn't know how to navigate or cook or lie or use a sword, so that's why he's got the four of us to help him. Then we'll eventually want a doctor and a shipment and who knows what other roles we'll need to fill?"

"That's true. I can make sure everyone's getting a proper diet, but if someone gets sick I'm not a doctor," Sanji said quietly. He picked up at the tangerine and sighed, shaking his head. "You know, it's weird. When Zeff and I were finally picked up from that rock, the first thing that I ate on the ship that found us was a tangerine."

"Really?" Nami asked.

Sanji nodded and laughed, opening up his wallet and removed a carefully folded piece of paper. "Yeah. I ate the whole thing – even the rind. Best tasting food I have EVER had. The only thing I didn't eat was this sticker that someone put on the outside." He unfolded the paper, revealing a slightly chewed but still in relatively good condition sticker of a pink, purple, and sparkling unicorn.

Nami stared at the sticker in disbelief and began to question if maybe fate had brought them together after all. 

**Author's Note:**

> So for this particular update I added in a slight acknowledgement of Sanji's Germa backstory, but otherwise most of this one was just kind of polished and expanded a little, though their talk about the All Blue and Nami's map is new. Honestly, this is something that, while it definitely comes up in the SaNami corner of the fandom, is kind of a relevant point. TECHNICALLY speaking, they're the only Straw Hat dreams that rely on each other's completion. Now naturally the Straw Hats are all going to help each other, of course, but all of the other dreams (except for maybe Jinbe's dream since right now I'm guessing it's "make Luffy Pirate King") could, in theory, be done independently of all the other dreams. Zoro, for example, doesn't technically need to be a pirate to be the best swordsman in the world. That's the path he's chosen to get there, yes, but in theory one could be a Marine or bounty hunter and be just as equipped to reach that same goal. 
> 
> Nami, on the other hand, CAN'T complete her map without the location of the All Blue. Period. Full stop. Not going to happen. Even if the All Blue is created by the destruction of Fishman Island, that would still need to go on her map.
> 
> So yeah a fair bit was added to this one but I think it's all good stuff :)
> 
> Hope you enjoyed and please feel free to leave a comment! I love hearing from readers :)


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